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International audience; In the mid-1990s, as the Internet underwent a major wave of growth and commodification, it also became increasingly politicised. In this article, we analyse the process that led to the birth of the digital rights movement in France. Based on archival work and interviews with key protagonists of the movement, this article blends historical, sociological and policy analysis to help explain the politicisation of French “Internet pioneers”. It documents the emergence of alternative Internet service providers, their relationship to other activist groups, and to the wider digital economy. It then shows how the same small group of individuals turned to political advocacy by surveying some of their interactions with policy-makers, focusing in particular on the debate on intermediary liability and freedom of expression. We stress that the particular social trajectories of these digital rights activists confronted with the commodification of the Internet and the power practices of the state converged to create a “perfect storm” that led them to wield exceptional influence on Internet policy in this early phase of development. We also highlight some of the movement’s internal contradictions and explain its waning influence from the early 2000s on. Through this article, we hope to help diversify the historiography of digital activism as well as to contribute to comparative-historical approaches.

Die Sonderstellung der Monografie im Spektrum des wissenschaftlichen Publizierens stellt den Aufbau von Open-Access-Publikationsmodellen in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften (im englischen HSS) vor besondere Herausforderungen. Der Artikel stellt dar, wie das EU-Projekt HIRMEOS (High Integration of Research Monographs in the European Open Science infrastructure) diese Herausforderungen anpackt. Vorgestellt werden Ziele, Partner, Arbeitspakete und Arbeitsmethoden des Projekts sowie die wichtigsten technischen Spezifikationen der implementierten Dienste und Werkzeuge für digitale Monografien. The peculiar position of the monograph in the range of scholarly publishing presents specific challenges for the building of Open Access publication structures in the humanities and in the social sciences (HSS). The article shows how the EU project HIRMEOS (High Integration of Research Monographs in the European Open Science infrastructure) meets these challenges. Objectives, partners, work packages and working methods of the project, as well as the most important technical specifications of the implemented services and tools for digital monographs are presented here.

In the light of new digital production and dissemination practices, the scholarly publishing system has seen significant and also disruptive changes, especially in STM (science, technology and medicine) and with regard to the predominant format “journal article.” The digital transformation also holds true for those disciplines that continue to rely on the scholarly monograph as a publication format and means for reputation building, namely the Humanities and the Social Sciences with a qualitative approach (HSS). In our paper we analyse the reasons why the monograph has not yet reached its full potential in the digital paradigm, especially in the uptake of Open Access and innovative publishing options. We highlight some of the principal underlying factors for this, and suggest how especially practices, now more widespread in HSS but arising from the Digital Humanities, could play a role in moving forward the rich digitality of the scholarly monograph. peerReviewed

We investigate the accuracy of how author names are reported in bibliographic records excerpted from four prominent sources: WoS, Scopus, PubMed, and CrossRef. We take as a case study 44,549 publications stored in the internal database of Sapienza University of Rome, one of the largest universities in Europe. While our results indicate generally good accuracy for all bibliographic data sources considered, we highlight a number of issues that undermine the accuracy for certain classes of author names, including compound names and names with diacritics, which are common features to Italian and other Western languages.

Abstract This article focuses on the U.S. diplomat and nuclear arms control negotiator Gerald (Gerry) Coat Smith in order to cast new light on the importance of diplomats in the context of the set of international activities currently labelled as “science diplomacy.” Smith, a lawyer by training, was a key negotiator in many international agreements on post‐WW2 atomic energy projects, from those on uranium prospecting and mining, to reactors technologies to later ones on non‐proliferation and disarmament. His career in science (nuclear) diplomacy also epitomized the shortcomings of efforts to align other countries’ posture on nuclear affairs to U.S. wishes. In particular, the unswerving diplomat increasingly understood that strong‐arm tactics to dissuade other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons would not limit proliferation. Not only did this inform later U.S. diplomacy approaches, but it lent itself to the ascendancy of the new notion of “soft power” as critical to the re‐definition of international affairs.

This article explores the co-shaping of global challenges and governance of science and technology through time. It aims to address the issue of governance of science and technology as governing through local (regional, national) and international negotiations and institutions. At the center of the analysis is the entanglement of technology, science, diplomacy, and diplomatic relations, which we explore through the concept of science diplomacy. We argue that the transnational perspective allows scholars to connect the local and global scales, and conclude with a reflection on how historical perspectives on the governance of science and technology in periods of social and economic crisis can provide valuable insights to policy-makers.

This essay highlights the great potential that historical research offers for discussing energy-related issues more reflexively in current debates on the "great global challenges." Tracing the historical roots of present-day energy regimes not only reveals societies' long and contentious relationship with-and dependence on-energy sources of various kinds but also challenges essentialist, linear, and at times utopian notions of "energy transitions" in public and political debates. We argue that historical research is particularly able to reveal how energy transitions have been and continue to be embedded within larger societal transitions and are subject to asymmetrical power relations as well as to circumstance, contingencies, and unanticipated effects and consequences. In order to disentangle the complex relations of society and energy, we propose focusing on three topics in particular: (1) renewable energies and environmental issues; (2) actors, networks and institutions in incumbent systems; and (3) discourses and perceptions as agents of change.

This article presents a vision for a scholarly communication research infrastructure for social sciences and humanities (SSH). The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the pressing need to access research outputs without the traditional economic and temporal barriers. This article explores the current scholarly communication landscape, assessing the reasons for the slower uptake of open access in SSH research. The authors discuss such frontiers as commercial interests, sources of academic prestige and discipline-specific genres.This article defines and discusses the key areas in which a research infrastructure can play a vital role in making open scholarly communication a reality in SSH: (1) providing a federated and easy access to scattered SSH outputs; (2) supporting publication and dissemination of discipline-specific genres (e.g. monographs, critical editions); (3) providing help with evaluation and quality assurance practices in SSH; (4) enabling scholarly work in national languages, which is significant for local communities; (5) being governed by researchers and for researchers as a crucial factor for productive, useful and accessible services; (6) lastly, considering the needs of other stakeholders involved in scholarly communication, such as publishers, libraries, media, non-profit organisations, and companies.They conclude that a scholarly-driven, inclusive, dedicated infrastructure for the European Research Area is needed in order to advance open science in SSH and to address the issues tackled by SSH researchers at a structural and systemic level.